Why you shouldn't put all your eggs in one marketing basket

A dear friend of mine has recently found himself suspended from Facebook until further notice. He had forgotten his password and in an attempt to reset, he inadvertently reported that it was not him attempting to access his account. Now he’s in lockdown till they can prove he is who he says he is. Cue big lesson - don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Social media can be awesome, absolutely. But ultimately you are not in complete control of your account in the same way that you are with your own website or an emailing list or even the contacts you have in your phone.

The other thing you need to consider is that all of the social media channels are constantly changing - especially the big two. It’s not unusual for them to make huge updates to our experience or to their terms of service. Who knows what the future holds, so it’s important for you to have some kind of control over your audience and customers.

Here are a few of things I think you should consider doing asap and ongoing.

1. Back up everything regularly. If you’ve recently backed up your Facebook page for example, if you are hacked or deleted or something like that, you can restore your account.

2. Don’t make anyone else an admin on your accounts unless you absolutely trust them. If you have a third party managing your account, just editor status should be more than enough. Remember to delete staff members from the account when they are leaving too. This is hard with Instagram because you do need to hand over that password if you want someone else to manage it. Again, trust is key and changing the password regularly is a good idea.

3. Keep track of your passwords and make sure you have adequate recovery options - an email account you can access (that you have the password to). Keep your passwords in the cloud somewhere, not just in a paper diary.

4. Think about creating a database for email marketing - it’s a little time consuming to generate content but it’s worthwhile. Mailchimp is a fantastic platform to use. Try to convert your social media audiences to your database when you can.

5. Don’t go on any big following or unfollowing sprees on any social media channels and don’t use Bots - particularly on Instagram. Basically anything that you are doing to gain an unfair advantage on social media is not well received by the powers that be. You cannot hide from their algorithms. If you are using any apps that require your Facebook or Instagram logins (for example) you should check that they are approved.

There are lots and lots of marketing options available on and offline. You might be surprised to know that just the other day, I advised a client to delete his facebook account and revert to using the phone and face-face networking to grow his business. The point is - don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I’d be happy to talk further with you about any or all of these options and take a look at your existing marketing channels to decide what is best for you. Taking steps to secure your data is important and relying too heavily on one marketing channel can be detrimental if you lose that channel. Please get in touch.